


Moon Rocks

by honda_cvic



Category: Iconoclasts (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Self-Doubt, Self-Hatred, Some Cursing, Some graphic descriptions of suffocating/asphyxiation, Spoilers, royal thinks robin is the most amazing person in the world ok, vague suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-14 20:44:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13598016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honda_cvic/pseuds/honda_cvic
Summary: How much ivory does a single chunk of the moon hold within? And how long can it sustain the life of a fallen prophet who had previously begged his best and only friend to leave him to die?





	Moon Rocks

**Author's Note:**

> Beware of spoilers!
> 
> possessedscholar on tumblr proposed this idea (http://possessedscholar.tumblr.com/post/170561732792/yall-realize-royal-aint-truly-dead-right) and I had to write it, oops,

Royal doesn’t die right away.

He’s hardly aware of what’s happening, at first, too enraptured and encaptured in nightmarish visions imposed onto him by a god he once thought of as his Father. He was lost in it, overwhelmed by an unbearable ringing, visions of Mother’s hateful eyes and spitting words, and pain pain pain _pain._ He had begged Robin to leave him, tried desperately to convince her that what Mother was yelling at him was true, that nothing would ever get better while he was around. That Robin would never be happy until Royal was dead.

And then she is gone and then Royal is dying.

He’s snapped out of his imposed visions of guilt-laden gray when Midway explodes. Royal is crushed in an instant, smashed between a crumbling wall and a piece of the floor that has succumbed to the vacuum of space. His hand finds a chunk of moon rock and he scrambles to get a hold of it before he can even register the pain, the air being ripped out of his lungs, his bones being crushed into a fine dust and his ivory blood beading into perfect spheres in the weightless space. Then there’s a series of _pop pop pop pops,_ a familiar feeling of flesh mending itself as the ivory that keeps him all together flows inward and through, back together, effortlessly.

He’s whole again, and he gasps, still clinging on to a chunk of the moon as he spins further and further from the ruins of the moon base below him, a victim of a limitless vacuum. But then, no, no, no, there’s no air, there’s nothing at all and _NO_ Royal feels himself suffocating, feels his lungs rupture and his blood begin to boil and his skin is chipping away and he’s no no nononono NO—

 _Pop pop pop pop—_ his skin is back and his lungs have reflated, a moment of relief—but then he’s choking again but he’s aware, briefly, of his surroundings. He’s aware of the small chunk of moon rock he has wrapped himself around in an attempt to stop the spiraling; he’s aware of the debris from Midway, rocketing in to space in every direction from the force of an apparent explosion; he’s aware of the ruins of the moons below him further and further and further—

He feels dizzy again and his lungs are folding in on themselves and his own saliva on his tongue is boiling and he can hear blood in his ears but _pop pop pop pop,_ he’s put back together again, tries to suck in a breath, brushes against death again but _pop pop pop pop,_ he’s back. He’s back. Oh, god, he’s back. The too-familiar feeling of exhaustion is overtaking him; he’s used his power too much, and he even feels the moon rock he’s clinging to begin to crumble in his grip, being sapped of ivory the same way the vacuum of the universe is sapping Royal of life every few goddamn seconds.

But he’s such a coward. He’s such a fucking _coward_ because even after begging Robin to kill him _(and she did and she did and she did, she hates you she hates you she hates you,)_ he’s so scared. He’s terrified, he doesn’t want to die, not like this, so when his vision blurs again and he sees bubbles of skin and bone and terrible silky silver blood rising on his arms, he heals himself again with another series of pops, and he feels another piece of him leave as the rest is sewn back together.

How many times has he healed himself now? How much longer can he do this for? All the mechanics that the One Concern had sent up into space to mine ivory or to build Midway had been equipped with special suits to help them survive up here. How long could someone, even someone with ivory blood like he, keep living? Keep taking?

He coughs, and it’s horrible, and he feels chunks of his face, cheeks and eyelids and the tip of his nose, chip away, air bubbles rise in his blood vessels, his heart, his brain, and he thinks he tries to scream before _pop pop pop pop,_ he’s back again, whole again, dying again. His stomach heaves what may have been a sob if he had air left in his body, if he wanted to open his mouth and risk every fluid in him boiling and escaping. He closes his eyes to stop tears from freezing his eyeballs solid.

He doesn’t know how long he stays like that, dying and returning and dying and returning and dying and returning, but by the time he tries to open his eyes again, he feels an exhaustion like no other, and the moon rock in his hands is now no larger than his fist, purple dust flaking off it in clear indication of ivory depletion. Not much longer now, _not much longer now_ , he grits his teeth and curls into himself and if there were atmosphere here he’d be sobbing but there’s none so he’s resigned to coughing and choking on his own boiling blood and lung tissues working their way up into his throat.

Royal thinks of her, then. Robin. He thinks of her, and her smile, and her frown, and the way she puffs herself up when she wants to look tough, and the way she shrinks in on herself when she’s afraid, and the way she laughed when Royal had given her a tentative thumbs-up upon taking her to the Isi people. He thinks of her, the way her eyes widened at the flowers he had made, those geometric failures. How she had smiled so wide at them, and how he liked them, too, even though they weren’t round and beautiful like the ones in the books in City One. He thinks about how he failed her, in the end, and failed her brother and Mina and the rest of the planet, doomed them. Their own holy progeny was a failure and a fluke, a purposeless sack of flesh who even now couldn’t stop piecing himself back together at the expense of something else. He had doomed them. He had doomed them all, and Mother was dead, and He was on his way to destroy the planet, and it was All. His. Fault.

He wants to do better, wanted to do better, felt elation in his heart when Robin would stand up for him, felt crushing heartbreak when he would inevitably let her down. What Black had said was surely true-- he would make an awful leader. He couldn’t connect to common people if he tried.

But Robin made him want to try. She made him want to try when she looked at him with something in her eyes that was maybe akin to hope, or at least as much hope as anyone had ever had for Royal. Maybe he could do this, he had thought. Maybe he could do this.

It’s too late now, though; he knows this, and yet Royal sees her smiling still, sees her kneeling by his flowers. He’s failed her and yet still feels a terrible ache in him that must mean there’s something left to do. He wants to see her. He wants to see her succeed. What else can he do?

Mother’s scowl. Robin’s smile. They dance on either side of his blurring vision and tell him, gently, what to do next.

Royal, holy progeny and future medium to He, lets go of the moon rock.


End file.
